Former BVTB employee wants job back, not just damages

A dismissed Barbados Vocational Training Board (BVTB) employee has gone to the Court of Appeal to challenge a decision by the Employment Rights Tribunal (ERT) to award her damages rather than reinstate her in her position.

However, with no board members yet in place for the BVTB or no knowledge of when a chair will be appointed, Jasmine Valerie Payne’s case could not progress before Chief Justice Sir Patterson Cheltenham and Justices of Appeal Francis Belle and Margaret Reifer on Thursday.

Back in August 2016, it was disclosed before the ERT that Payne, who was the Marketing and Public Relations Officer, was dismissed from her position on October 31, 2013 because she failed to produce the annual reports from circulation.

Payne went before the three-member ERT – comprised of Chairman Omari Drakes, Dr Hartley Richards and Frederick Forde – in a wrongful dismissal case with Tricia Watson as her attorney.

At the end of the case, the tribunal awarded Payne damages.

She is now before the Court of Appeal appealing the decision, as she wants to be reinstated in the position of Marketing and Public Relations Officer which was not filled.

Attorneys Gregory Nicholls and Watson are representing her in the appeal which charges that there was no evidence before the ERT that would have made reinstatement impractical, and, therefore, the determination of the tribunal was flawed and wrong in law.

But at Thursday’s sitting, Vincent Watson who is the attorney for the BVTB, said he was “in the dark” as to when a board was likely to be in place or whether the chair was going to be reappointed at the BVTB.

Given that development, the Court of Appeal adjourned the matter to allow “the parties to explore the parameters of a settlement . . . .” In default, the hearing will continue on May 10.